Botham was a seriously good cricketer - not so sure about his taste in wine - good to see Bob Willis in the clips and there’ll ever be only one Ritchie Benaud who could teach today’s commentators and pundits a thing or two.
Hate to sound like an arrogant Aussie but I have always rated foreign players on wether they would make their opposing Aussie side of the time. Ian Botham definitely would have and would have fitted in nicely to the Australian way of thinking ! Gough , Pettersen , Klusner , Steyn and McCallum prime candidates too ! 😎👍
@@randyborstol2491 yeah more to my point than ability. Team position , fielding , team commitment. Thorpe definitely had " bottle "and was a tough opponent. AFL and NRL season nearly finished here in Australia...bring on the cricket ! Stay safe mate !😎👍
@@cquilty1 All great players indeed. Imran Khan’s batting record isn’t quite up to the other three names standards against tests played. Gary Sobers stated that Ian Botham was the most gifted / talented all-rounder he’d ever seen. No modern player tore through world-class teams like Botham did in his prime.
@@davidbrooks187 Imran's test batting record (after 88 tests) is 37.69, and Botham's 33.54. Say no more. And Khan's test bowling average of 22.81 puts him in a very elite club. He was also extremely fit and consistent throughout his career. Unlike Botham. The batting average of Kallis and Sobers also puts them in a very elite cub also. Remarkable Botham truly had moments of brilliance but his penchant for booze, cigarettes, pie and chips and clear dislike for training and physical fitness led to excess weight, injuries and and many sub-par performances in his career. Look at him now. You're clearly a huge fan of Botham and allowing this to compromise your objectivity. Darren Gough and Andrew Flintoff much the same. Weight and fitness issues. Thank goodness the game has changed and has little time for such unfit players.
@@cquilty1 Imran Khan was a great cricketer but not in Ian Botham‘s class. Botham had shots in his armoury Imran Khan could only dream of & is credited for 2 of the great all time innings performances. Botham was a much better all-round cricketer & just his presence on the pitch sometimes changed the opposing teams strategy. Bothams performance in the 1981 Ashes was unmatched & was era defining, the greatest performance by an all rounder cricketer ever. His 387 wickets and 5200 runs & 100+ catches surpasses Khan’s. Yes I agree that Botham being crickets first modern superstar and the attention he got sometimes affected his performances in the latter years but that is a bi-product of being the most famous cricketer in the world during that era. Bothams repeated match winning performances against great opposition in the late 70s to the late 80s are unsurpassed in skill & craft. He could destroy teams with the bat and he could make a ball swing even on the most dead of pitches. I agree with Garfield Sobers that Botham was the most gifted cricketer ever. Viv Richard’s Arguably the greatest batsmen of all time in arguably the greatest team ever stated that Botham was the greatest player ever played against. Botham did it time and time again when it really mattered. I agree with the experts Mr Sobers & Mr Richards.
@@davidbrooks187 Your fanboy hysteria rages, david. Again, Botham was a remarkable match winning cricketer when it took his fancy but sadly fitness, weight, poor discipline and fitness issues marred his career. Once more, Imran Khan's batting and bowling average/strike rate is superior to Botham's. Numbers don't lie - unless of course you're a deluded, irrational fanboy:) To conclude, you say: "Yes I agree that Botham being crickets first modern superstar and the attention he got sometimes affected his performances in the latter years but that is a bi-product of being the most famous cricketer in the world during that era." Ha! I never said anything of the sort so what we "agree" on is laughable rhetoric from a shameless, deluded, irrational fanboy. Botham's appalling fitness level, smoking, lack of will power and obvious penchant for a fry up have nothing to do with him being a "bi-product of being the most famous cricketer in the world during that era." Got any more absurd apologist nonsense for a poorly disciplined, salad dodging 'athlete?' You're clearly new to cricket. Hee! Hee!
The two slips in for Greg Chappell enticed the batsman to take on the bowler. Clearly the ball moved off the seam and Chappell hitting across the line to the onside just helped get an inside edge and onto the bails.
to be fair botham got more test wickets with crap balls than anyone i've ever seen. not slagging him off, he was an outstanding bowler, but he suckered plenty over the years.
Such an easy uncomplicated action. I think he was a far more effective bowler in his earlier days when he concentrated on varying his pace and moving the ball. I think he lost something when he later became the 'enforcer' and was more intent on brute force and intimidation often buying his wickets for quite a few runs. Although he was a quick and effective strike bowler with more than 300 wickets to his name, I never really thought of him as being a front line fast bowler.
Good old Sir Beefy. Tory, Brexiteer, hunter of anything that moves, staunch monarchist, viewer of England as an Island and altogether a man known for his inability to rub along, comfortably, with rather a lot of his fellow sportsmen. Let’s hope ‘Revitive’ puts the spring back in this red blooded Brits step, or, failing that, a few quid in the dwindling contents of his wallet.
Would be considered normal in any nation in the world except the West which has this weird politics of suicide and self hatredism which is typical of an impending collapse
@Colin White If you're going to cite I T's myriad achievements, don't forget that he once bashed up Ian Chappell like a good 'un, and by all accounts deliberately ran out that wonky mouthed woman beatting boor of a bore, Boycott. Apparently the latter act earnt him his knighthood. Hear! Hear!
